Most people don't like being different. They want exactly the same things as their neighbors, only bigger, and more of them. Yet no matter how much they have, they always feel there is something missing. The Smiths are not like other people. They might not be any good at cooking, or housework, or homework, but in their jumbled house full of strange things that will probably be useful one day, they are happy and content. Yet the Smiths, too, feel that there is something missing from their lives. And today the children went down to the shops and found it.